Senate to move quickly on nominations

Democrats will take advantage of new Senate rules and rush to confirm six of President Barack Obama’s most prominent nominations over the next two weeks.

Senate leadership is aiming to confirm three judges to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals as well as a trio of crucial executive nominations before Dec. 20, Democratic aides said. The nominees that top Democrats are racing to approve are: Janet Yellen to lead the Federal Reserve, Jeh Johnson to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to oversee the Federal Housing Finance Agency and D.C. Circuit judicial nominees Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins.

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There is little that Senate Republicans can do to halt those nominations given that the chamber voted last month to eliminate the 60-vote requirement on all of Obama’s nominees except for those to the Supreme Court. The GOP can require Democrats to burn 30 hours of debate time for each nominee except Watt, a potential strategy that Republicans will debate during their weekly lunch on Tuesday. But just 51 senators are needed to advance nominees now and there are 55 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Democrats do not expect Republicans to force the Senate to burn more than 150 hours of time on those nominees but are prepared to work over the weekend if necessary, one top aide said. Senate Republicans’ rejection of the three judicial nominees and Watt precipitated a rules change by tapping the “nuclear option” — a majority vote that eliminated the need for cooperation with Republicans on nominees.

Yellen and Johnson both have bipartisan support, which may allow their confirmations to proceed more quickly.

The first vote will be on Monday afternoon, when the Senate will vote on final confirmation for Millett.

Tempers in the Senate are still running hot after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) invoked the long-threatened nuclear option. But Republicans are likely to continue focusing on Obamacare’s woes in their messaging, rather than solely hammer Democrats over changing the Senate’s arcane rules, a subject that rarely resonates outside Washington.

“While Democrats broke the Senate rules to ram through their partisan agenda, they will still be required to follow the same time requirements with regard to the cloture process,” said one Republican aide. “That said, [next] week you’ll see Republicans continue to focus on ObamaCare’s consequences.”